Bangalore: President A P J Abdul Kalam on October 28 told the Information Technology industry in India to emerge as a total end-to-end solutions provider in IT, saying relying only on software might not be the best strategy for the future.

Inaugurating Bangalore IT.com 2002, billed as Asia's top IT event here, Kalam said besides software, India should emerge as a world leader in hardware, embedded system, design and integration and be an end-to-end solutions provider.

"Relying only on software may not be the best strategy for the future," Kalam told the five-day event being attended by delegates and IT firms from 17 foreign countries.

He also emphasised the need for India to graduate from the maker of IT products to "knowledge products" and adding value to software and hardware products.

According to him, Indian IT companies faced problems post September 11 incident, but they did not feel the pinch as much as felt by those in the developed countries. The lesson learnt from that experience is that Indian software should be more robust and less fragile if it has to contribute significantly to the economy.

He also called upon the IT industry to draw up a long-term strategy and investment to expand the domestic IT market, and also exhorted each IT company to partner with institutions and take up mission to develop north-eastern states and Jharkhand and Bihar in terms of IT prosperity.

Kalam also said that the mission to bring out National Citizens' Card is essential.

PTI